This pastor and professor begins by frankly admitting that "a number of years ago I came to the awareness that God wasn't very real to me. . . . I knew the words and the formulas," he writes, but his praying was less that satisfying. Then he discovered a new way to approach God-like a child reaching out to a father. "It was the cry of my soul for intimacy with the God of my life."
The author draws examples from Gideon to Francis Schaeffer. Brown's stories and examples are often funny and moving, and occasionally personal. Brown describes hearing that his daughter had been born with a high blood count, and one of her legs was blocked from getting nourishment and might have to be amputated. That night he gathered with Christians who prayed simply and earnestly, and the next morning he and his wife learned that their newborn's blood count was normal. Brown knows it wasn't coincidence, regardless of what others may say, and this answer to prayer has had a profound impact on him.
Readers will also enjoy Brown's honest tone in the last chapter where he answers questions he has received as Bible teacher on the radio program "Key Life." He doesn't quibble in giving answers or ask questions in reply. Here's the last one for example: "Does God hear my prayers? Does he care? Does it matter?" And Brown's straightforward answer: "Yes. Yes. More than you could possibly imagine."
Perhaps Charles Colson described this book best when he said, "Steve Brown writes the way he talks: engaging, witty, down-to-earth, and rich in wisdom." That's what makes reading Approaching God: How to Pray such a great experience.
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